Today early in the morning at about 9am the two boats from Lesvos
arrived in Dikili - several hours earlier than officially announced before.
First the "Nazli Zale" landed at the pier, the refugees were brought out
one by one, escorted each by security. There was no way for resistance,
it seemed to us.
Lots of officials and politicians smiled in many cameras, as the
international media presence was very high, although critical
journalists were not allowed to register as one of them told us.
Police was also prepared, with fence, helicopter and water cannon, but
the maybe expected protest was unfortunately small.
The ship from Chios was last and the deported refugees had to wait for
hours near the harbour until the other ships were emptied.
Later on some activists from Izmir and some locals were able to show
their protest banners. Our own banner "Stop deportations. Open borders!"
was already removed by the police, who told us to follow them. Just
because of the big media presence we were able to resist and to stay
under the media's protection.
Apart from two Syrian people (about whom it is said that they returned
voluntarily) all deported refugees (136 from Lesvos and 66 from Chios)
were from Algeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Not far away at the other side, at the pier of the Turkish Coastguard
about 50 refugees were waiting for further proceeding. Their were picked
up by the Coastguard early this morning, when their boat started
drowning. They were mainly from Bangladesh and Pakistan and were
transferred by busses to the Police Station (Jendarma). Because of the
media presence today it was allowed to take fotographs and to watch the
situation - this area normally is totally restricted.
In the morning it was still completely unclear where they want to bring
the deported people from Lesbos and Chios - even the mayor of Dikili
wasn't informed yet, as one journalist told us - later we got the infos
that all of them are transferred by busses now to a camp near the
Bulgarian border Kirklareli Gazi Osman Pasa near Edirne and they will
soon all get deported to their different countries of origin. Some media
followed the busses.
What will happen to the Syrians remained unclear to us.
Yesterday until the late evening at the central place of Dikili still
many people took the chance to sign the call against refugees - they
even call the refugees "terrorists" - this nationalist initiative had a
manifestation already two days ago and many shops here show this slogan
in their front windows. Anyway we also were able to talk to several
people here who are also upset about the EU deal with Turkey and the
Turkish politics.